


Just a Man

by thecryoftheseagulls



Series: Logan Hawke [8]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2525816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aftermath of the All That Remains quest in DA2, from Anders’ perspective. Trigger warning for thoughts of suicide and general grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Man

Anders goes out for the first time in…days? Weeks? He’s not entirely sure. The days since Leandra’s passing have started to blur together. Logan has been almost completely silent, moving throughout the estate in a haze, refusing to see anyone or talk to anyone. He hasn’t pushed Anders away (thank the Maker for small mercies) so Anders has spent the time as Logan’s shadow, following him about, usually touching him in some small way to ground him, holding Logan while he sleeps (fitfully and plagued by nightmares), making sure Logan is actually eating _something_.

Then today a woman came, desperate. Her daughter is going into labor and there’s no one, no one to help, no one to turn to. Logan speaks for the first time in days, tells Anders simply,

“Go.”

And Anders does.

When he returns, Bodahn greets him at the door looking…well, terrified.

“Master Anders! Oh, thank the ancestors you’ve arrived, sir! Please, you must come quickly. Messere Hawke is…he’s…”

Anders takes one look at the panic in the normally unflappable dwarf’s eyes and demands, “Where is he?” A half-dozen worst-case scenarios spiral through his mind – the templars have come for him, he’s dead, he’s captured, he’s been taken to the Gallows. Justice stirs in reaction to Anders’ fear, rage at any of those possibilities threatening to choke them both and the spirit roars in his head WE WILL CRUSH THEM ALL IF THEY TOUCH HIM and Anders knows his eyes are sparking blue when he hears Bodahn say,

“He’s in the study. Please, messere, you must be careful, he’s been…”

Anders doesn’t wait to hear the rest. Shoving Justice down, he strides towards Logan’s study as quickly as he can without actually running.

Orana is cowering in the hall with Maelstrom, Logan’s mabari.

“Master Anders, oh please, you have to talk to him, the master, he’s so angry, I don’t know what to do…”

There are blue flashes of light coming from the open door at the opposite end of the hall and loud crashing, and Anders stops just long enough to put a hand on the servant’s shoulder and say,

“Hush, child. I’ll take care of it. You just…take Maelstrom elsewhere, all right? Don’t worry.” The mabari whines loudly, and Anders glances down at him. “It’s all right boy. Just go with the lady, okay?” Orana nods vigorously and backs away, fleeing downstairs towards the kitchen and Maelstrom follows. Anders takes a breath, and approaches the room cautiously, hefting his staff in one hand.

Inside, the room has been utterly destroyed. Broken pieces of furniture litter the floor, along with the wall hangings and the curtains and the shattered inkwell and scattered pieces of parchment. Everything is burnt to a crisp, most of it still smoking even if nothing is actually on fire, but it’s clear that this damage wasn’t caused by the lightning that still sparks from the fingertips of the mage in the center of all the destruction. No, the burning came after. Anders can see that the sharp cracked edges of all the broken wood were made by brute force.

Logan has ripped everything in the room apart with his bare hands.

As Anders watches, Logan grabs what looks like a table leg off the floor and breaks it over his knee, but he isn’t careful enough and a huge shard of wood pierces through Logan’s right hand. He screams in agony and the electricity that had momentarily died down arcs from his hands again until the whole room is lit with eerie blue flashes. Logan kicks at something that was once a desk or part of a table and drops to his knees, keening like wounded animal. The lightning slowly fades as Logan folds in on himself, rocking back and forth, and the sounds he is making rip right through Anders.

“Logan.” He rushes to the other mage, dropping his staff with a clatter and falling to the floor beside him. He throws an arm over Logan’s back and tugs Logan to him with the other hand. He’s babbling, “Logan, love, shh, I’m here, it’s all right love, come here, hey, I’ve got you, shh, shh,” and Logan turns and lets out a half-choked cry and then latches on to Anders’ coat and starts sobbing into his chest.

Up close, Anders can see Logan’s bloodied knuckles and the wood embedded deeply in his palm. He thinks several of Logan’s fingers might be broken. Anders rubs Logan’s back and holds him for a moment while he assesses the damage. Then he tugs out the sharp piece of wood quickly, puts his hands over Logan’s wrists, and sends healing magic through his fingers to the other man’s skin. Logan is so far gone he doesn’t even seem to notice.

Anders settles himself cross-legged on the floor and tugs the bigger man into his lap. Eventually Logan’s crying slows, becomes sniffling and quiet gasps, and Anders tugs a clean handkerchief from a pocket inside his coat and starts wiping the tears from Logan’s face.

Logan laughs, brokenly. “You…do this…with all your patients?”

Anders kisses his puffy nose. “Only the ones that really need it,” he says softly. Logan makes a choked sound, and Anders genuinely can’t tell if it’s a laugh or a sob. Both, probably. “You know, if you didn’t want me to go out, you could have just told me.” Anders offers a lopsided smile and Logan groans, burying his face in Anders’ chest again.

“’m sorry,” he whispers, muffled.

“Don’t be sorry. Don’t be. You did rather scare the servants, though.” Anders tips Logan’s head up so he can whisper, “Listen, love, I know you’re looking for someone to be angry at. If it helps, go ahead and take it out on me, okay?”

Logan’s fingers tighten in Anders’ clothes. “Anders, no,” he whispers brokenly, eyes filling with tears again. “You didn’t do this. I couldn’t…not on you.”

“Whatever you need,” Anders insists, “I’m here for.”

“Not that. Maker, please, not that. I don’t want to – I won’t hurt you, Anders.”

Anders takes one of Logan’s hands in his own, rubs his fingers over the crusted blood and the now-smooth skin. “But you’d hurt yourself?”

“This is _my_ fault,” Logan’s dark brows draw together.

“That is not true, and you know it.”

Logan looks away, ignores him. “I didn’t stop him. I should have caught him years ago! All those women. I could have saved Mother. And Alessa.” The floor beneath them shakes, rattling the broken furniture surrounding them. Logan grits his teeth. “And someone in the Circle was helping him! _Helping_ him, Anders. One of us did this. _One of us_ helped him. Maybe we are a danger to everyone around us. What has magic touched that it hasn’t destroyed? Gamlen was right. Magic is a curse. _I_ am cursed.”

“Don’t say that,” Anders begs. “Don’t you dare. You’re not cursed, Logan. Do you hear me? _We’re not cursed_.”

Logan isn’t listening, lets go of Anders’ coat to clench his hands into fists. Little sparks of lightning arc around his closed hands. “What even is the point of me if I can’t save any of them?!” The words are a near-howl, accompanied by a burst of lightning that floods up from Logan’s hands in a tangled pillar and hits the ceiling with enough force for bits of plaster to rain down around them. The ceiling starts smoking.

Anders put his hands on either side of Logan’s face when the sparks die down. “Logan, hey. Look at me.”

He does, grinds out around clenched teeth, “I’ve failed them, all of them, Anders. I promised Father I would look after them when he was gone. I couldn’t protect Bethany. I should have listened to Mother and left Carver behind, not risked his life. And now Mother…” he bites back a sob. “And the worst part – the worst part…” Dropping his eyes to his hands, Logan’s voice fades to a whisper. “You heard her. She _wanted_ to die, Anders. Was _happy_ to be free. Did I fail her so completely that I couldn’t even see when she was dying inside? After Father – Bethany – she wasn’t the same. And then Carver…and when we got the estate back, she seemed better, happier, starting talking about suitors and,” he chokes out a bitter laugh, “a wife for me, and I thought she was _happy_ , but she wasn’t, was she? And I’m such a fool, I didn’t see it.”

“She made peace with her death, Logan,” Anders says, smoothing a hand over Logan’s hair. “That doesn’t mean she wanted to die.”

“Don’t tell me that. I know what it looks like when someone doesn’t want to live. I know, okay? I _know_.” Anders inhales sharply and Logan continues, “She was worried about _me_. About me being alone. That was the only reason she could find to not embrace death with open arms. How could I not see it? What am I good for if I can’t even take care of my own mother?!”

“What did you say.” Anders’ voice is quiet, very quiet, and it’s not really a question.

“I’m telling you I’m a fucking failure. Everything I touch, it falls apart. Even this…” Logan holds out a hand, palm up, and the skin of his hand crusts over with stone before a ball of pure electricity rises from his palm. “Even this has never been good for anything but death and destruction.”

Anders knocks his hand aside and the magic sputters out. “You said, you _know_. You…know. How do you know, Logan?” Hawke looks away, his jaw clenching, a stubborn light in his blue eyes. He shakes his head, and Anders grabs him by the chin and forces his gaze back. “How do you know, Logan?” Anders demands.

Logan glares at him, still red-eyed from crying, which undermines the steely look on his face. Anders wants to shake him, but he settles for tightening his fingers around Logan’s chin and holding him in place until Logan finally growls, “So I’ve been low before. So maybe I thought about it. Don’t pretend you and Fenris are the only ones who get to think about ending it, Anders. Don’t give me that.”

Anders drops his fingers. “Shit, Logan,” he mutters and this time it’s the healer’s eyes which are damp. “When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Logan shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago. After the expedition, you were…and Carver was…heh. Then before, when I was young…it’s not important.”

“The void it isn’t! Why wouldn’t you…” Anders growls and looks away, swiping the back of a hand against his eyes. When he looks back, Logan is watching him with more naked pain in his gaze than Anders has seen in the whole time since Leandra’s death. Anders groans out his name and crushes the other man to him.

Logan wraps his arms around Anders’ shoulders and buries his face in Anders neck, mumbling, “I’m _sorry_.” The word comes out so broken and anguished that Anders whimpers, clutching at Hawke with all the strength in his wiry body. He knows this as much as Logan knows what he saw in Leandra’s eyes as she was dying, knows the emptiness, the despair, the way it hurts Logan most that his admission has hurt Anders, because that’s how it is, isn’t it? Suffering in silence so no one else bears your pain.

“You don’t have to be strong for me, Logan,” Anders whispers. “You don’t have to pretend. You can tell me _anything_. Only, please…don’t…don’t leave me. I don’t know what I would do without you. I can’t…”

“Never, never,” Logan says into Anders’ skin. “Not ever, Anders. I swear it. I told you I couldn’t. When I thought you didn’t want me…but if you do, I won’t. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

Anders drags in a shuddery breath and kisses Logan’s forehead, his cheek, pulls him back just slightly by the hair so he can slant their lips together and Logan is shaking in his arms and arching into the kiss with desperation. Logan presses against Anders, would have shoved him back against the floor then and there, but Anders braces himself and pulls back.

“Tell me you don’t seriously believe that ass of an uncle of yours. You know none of this was your fault, Logan. Magic didn’t kill your mother, and certainly not your magic. He was a madman. That’s what made him do this. Not magic.”

“I should have…”

Anders presses his lips to Logan’s just long enough to silence him and then says, “We all wish we could have stopped it. But even you can’t fix everything, love. You’re not cursed. You’re just a man.”

Logan swallows around a quiet sob, his eyes brimming with tears again. Anders runs his hand over Logan’s bristled jaw.

“Listen to me. I’m in love with Logan, the man, the _mage_. Not the Hawke in Varric’s stories. That person doesn’t exist. I love _you_ , Logan. And I know you. You’re not a monster. You’re the best man I know.”

“How can you say that? You’ve seen what I’ve done. All the people I’ve killed. All the people I’ve failed to save. I can’t even protect my own _family_ , Anders.”

“You’re the one that’s always telling me what you see in me. Let me do this for you, okay? I wouldn’t be with you if I didn’t believe, absolutely, that you were worth it.” Logan is shaking his head, but Anders draws him closer in his arms and whispers, “You’re selfless, and kind. You’ve saved miners and refugees and that boy Feynriel, helped dozens of mages escape the Circle. You saved _me_ , Logan…Justice and I, we were losing ourselves and that girl, you know we would have killed her if you hadn’t been there. If it weren’t for you I don’t know how much of me there would be left by now. You keep me steady, my love. Don’t tell me you ruin everything you touch. I’m walking proof you have more of a healer’s touch than you give yourself credit for.”

Logan is crying in earnest, again, by the time Anders finishes. “I love you,” Logan says. “I don’t…I don’t know what I would do without you. What I ever did without you. Tell me you’ll stay with me.”

“Always,” Anders says fiercely, brushing the tears on Logan’s face away with his thumbs. “If you’re not allowed to leave me, you can be damn sure I’m not going anywhere.” Logan nods, watching Anders with too-wide blue eyes that are still red and puffy and broken, but earnest, and Anders brushes his lips across Logan’s forehead.

“Now,” Anders says. “You’re covered in soot and blood and frankly I still have blood all over me from delivering twins. Yes, twins. Why don’t I run us a bath?” When Logan glances around the room and lets out a long sigh, like he’s just now noticing the destruction around him, Anders says, “And we’ll worry about cleaning this up another time. I’ll have Bodahn clean it out tomorrow, all right?”

“All right,” Logan says, softly, and Anders feels a rush of relief at the words, that Logan is actually still talking and not just nodding his assent. Anders slides Hawke off his lap and gets to his feet before helping Logan up.

“Come on, then, love.”


End file.
